Cowboys get younger, lighter on offensive line

Updated 8:42 pm, Monday, August 29, 2011

This is a 2011 photo of Phil Costa of the Dallas Cowboys NFL football team. This image reflects the Dallas Cowboys active roster as of Wednesday, July 27, 2011 when this image was taken. (AP Photo)

This is a 2011 photo of Phil Costa of the Dallas Cowboys NFL football team. This image reflects the Dallas Cowboys active roster as of Wednesday, July 27, 2011 when this image was taken. (AP Photo)

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Cowboys get younger, lighter on offensive line

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In the span of five weeks, the Dallas Cowboys made over their offensive line from an aging, lumbering unit to one that's youthful and lean.

Only time will tell if that's a good thing.

The Cowboys completed the makeover with the release of center Andre Gurode, 32, on Monday. The five-time Pro Bowl pick was beat out by scrappy, undersized second-year player Phil Costa, 24, a former Maryland player who made the team last season as an undrafted free agent.

The first referendum on the youth-infused line will come Sept. 11 in a nationally televised season opener at the New York Jets in prime time.

"The guys who have been working with the (first-team offense) throughout training camp will be the guys we anticipate being in the starting lineup when we play the Jets," coach Jason Garrett said Monday in Irving.

That comment points to rookies Tyron Smith (right tackle) and Bill Nagy (left guard) joining Costa and returning starters Doug Free (left tackle) and Kyle Kosier (right guard) to form the youngest opening-day offensive line in franchise history. Dallas never has opened a season with two rookies starting up front.

"These are the decisions made around the league … really every year," Garrett said. "And they're hard decisions to make - guys who have been so good for so long, and you have to move on to the next guy, the younger guy."

Last year, the average age of the offensive line was 30. This year it will be 25.

Free is the only starter who manned the same position last season. Kosier, 32, who played left guard last season, is the only starter over 30. Smith is 20.

The line will also be smaller, a frightening prospect in the burly NFC East, where massive offensive linemen have been in vogue for years. The average size of last year's unit was 6-6, 324 pounds. This season, it's 6-4, 309.

But that's OK with Garrett. He likes tenacious linemen who move well.

"As a group," Garrett said, "they're smart, they're tough, they're getting on the defensive linemen or executing their assignments the right way."